


The Passage of Time

by Hey Future Fish (PoisonedDeath)



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Angst, Anxiety, Depression, Dissociation, Gen, Relapsing, Self-Harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-01
Updated: 2017-02-01
Packaged: 2018-09-21 11:03:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 654
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9545564
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PoisonedDeath/pseuds/Hey%20Future%20Fish
Summary: He knew this all too well. This pattern of rewarding himself just for surviving, and he hated it.





	

Not even a week before, Kageyama had been staring down at his thighs, at the faded white lines. He firmly believed that there was no way he could go back to how he was before, there was no way he'd need to. The world around him was getting tough, stressful, but he'd made his way through the worst of it without giving so much as half a thought to the blades that still sat in the bottom drawer of his dresser, concealed carefully under piles of old t-shirts that had remained untouched for years.

_It had been around nine months since the blade last touched his flesh._

But now, he wasn't sure what had happened. He was tired, that he knew. Not the kind of tired that can be fixed by a couple of extra hours sleep - instead it was the kind that drags you down by the lungs, stifles you as your brain blanks over and over again. Endless nothingness. Absolute exhaustion. He turned his attention to the weekend, to resting up, to his hobbies, but he woke up that morning, and everything was too dull. Nothing was right. The world's color had faded.

_He wasn't sure which urge came first._

He remembered a few years back, when he'd swallowed cider, drank bottle after bottle for no reason but to forget his surroundings. The urge slapped him upside the face that morning, and his brain, in its fuzzy state, could find no counterargument. He promised himself a drink when he got home.

_By lunch, he'd promised himself a second._

He knew this all too well. This pattern of rewarding himself just for surviving, and he hated it. He hated that he wouldn't allow himself to get drunk; he wasn't allowed to forget. Instead, he had to compromise and he'd made it clear to himself that there was to be no more than two. The world around him continued to blur, combine, the sounds mixed, the colors diminishing gradually. His eyes couldn't focus, his chest was too tight. Suffocation. He felt as though he would die, and yet, how could he die if he wasn't really there? Hands reached out from below his eye line, shaking in front of him, but he couldn't tell whose the were as he tried to focus on the twitching, quivering digits.

_And yet, he was conversing as normal._

He interacted with people, he expressed positive emotions towards people. He got on with his day. No one could see how he was fading to fit in with his new scenery, the way his eyes wanted to cry, but his heart felt numb. No one could see the emptiness tearing through his body, the way the unknown feeling that felt almost like anxiety, but not quite, was clogging up his lungs.

_He felt like an alien, a clown in a human costume._

It got worse during the journey home. His dream-like state continued on, but the knowledge of how he'd been throughout the day loomed over him, almost mockingly. Which was the real him? Was this all fake? Had he been lying this whole time? Was he just inventing these feelings so people would take pity on him? An idea popped into his head, one supplied by his self-hatred, one that he couldn't shake from his mind. He made another promise, one that was more reckless.

_Just when he'd started to think he was over it._

The first reward, one bottle of beer, was swallowed gratefully once he returned home. He stared holes into the wall, unable to move. He couldn't do it. His brain was echoing that one phrase over and over. How pathetic he was - he made that vow in the first place, and now he had no choice but to follow through. Breaking promises had the worst consequences. He gave in.

_And so, for the first time in nine months, the blade tore open his flesh again._


End file.
